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Africa and the World is a dynamic discussion of how Africa shapes world events today. Although Africa is often portrayed as a remove and impoverished area, remembered for the suffering of its people, it has played an important role in recent history and will continue to play a significant role in the future of America. Tukufu Zuberi weaves interview excerpts and stories from many Africans he has met—from refugees to heads of state—into a larger narrative that takes readers through key events in African history and shows their importance today.

My dear friend, former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, often quotes a familiar African proverb: ‘Until the lion speaks, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.’ In African Independence, not only does one of Africa's lions speak, but he roars. Zuberi demands our attention by forcing us to see formerly obscured realities, and, in doing so, positions us to better understand Africa's future. This book is eminently helpful in putting Africa's past, present, and future in proper perspective.

In this engaging and bold analysis of African independence, Tukufu Zuberi uses interviews, newsreels, and archival sources to understand the human experience in Africa and how Africans turned those experiences into struggles that changed their lives. The invasion of Ethiopia by Italy, as well as the exploitation of Africa by colonial powers for material and human capital for the war effort placed Africa well within the global currents of the twentieth century. Zuberi critiques the failure of U.S. humanitarian policies toward Africa and Africa’s current partnerships with countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. A film completes this critically important study of Africa in the modern world.

— Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Vanderbilt University

African Independence and its accompanying documentary film are indispensable for anyone who desires to be a truly well-educated twenty-first-century citizen. With critical sociological insight and rigorous historical excavation through time—from World War II to the Cold War and beyond—and across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Zuberi introduces us to the heroes and heroines of pan-Africanism and Africa’s independence movements. This meticulously researched book reveals the contradictions that continue to obstruct aspirations for African liberation. Indeed, the evidence presented shows that Africa is ‘once again locked in a death grip’ of post-colonial and post-independence manipulations. This book illuminates not only how we are all implicated but that our own humanity depends on how Africa shapes the world in this century.

Tukufu Zuberi offers a concise account of the historical connections between the development of the idea of race and the birth of social statistics. Zuberi describes how race-differentiated data are misinterpreted in the social sciences and asks searching questions about the ways racial statistics are used. He argues that statistical analysis can and must be deracialized, and that this deracialization is essential to the goal of achieving social justice for all.

"A call to action and, Zuberi hopes, a precursor to a conversation about the real meaning of race, ethnicity, and political power in America."-Time Magazine

"Zuberi shows just how vicious-especially through the use of statistics-the notion of race has been when it has been employed to protect the interest of those in power (whites), especially those who say that because race does not exist, racism is not real."-Michael Eric Dyson in Chicago Sun-Times

"Tukufu Zuberi's critical assessment of the analysis of racial data in Thicker Than Blood is a tour de force. His discussion and evaluation of the use of racial statistics in historical and cross-cultural contexts is original and important."-William Julius Wilson, Harvard University

In the early nineteenth century, thousands of emancipated and freeborn blacks from the United States returned to Africa to colonize the area now known as Liberia. In this, the first systematic study of the demographic impact of this move on the migrants, Tukufu Zuberi finds that the health of migrant populations depends on the adaptability of the individuals in the group, not on their race.

Edited Volumes

This groundbreaking study of South Africa provides a unique look at the interplay of demographic, social and economic processes in a society undergoing rapid change as a result of the collapse of apartheid. It uses data from the first post-apartheid census as the basis for analysis of fertility, mortality within the context of HIV/AIDS, migration, education, employment, and household structure. These census data are complemented by large-scale household surveys and data from a partial registration system to study the relationships among various demographic, economic, and social phenomena.

White Logic, White Methods shows the ways that a reigning white ideological methodology has poisoned almost all aspects of social science research. The only way to remedy these prevailing inequalities is for the complete overhaul of current methods, and a movement towards multicultural and pluralist approaches to what we know, think, and question.

When the SS Sultana exploded on April 27, 1865, more than 1,800 died —outnumbering the death toll from the Titanic disaster. Why, then, do so few people know about one of the worst maritime disasters in U.S. history? And what caused the explosion that took so many lives?

As Glenn Miller’s musical career soared, he traded in his commercial success for a military uniform to entertain US troops during World War II. Then, on a foggy afternoon, December 15, 1944, he took off from England heading for France. His plane vanished over the English Channel.

In 1884, a string of gruesome murders terrorized the people of Austin, Texas. Three years before Jack the Ripper struck London, a killer—or possibly multiple killers—brutally attacked and murdered eight women in their beds.

On July 30, 1975, teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared without a trace. At the time, he was one of the most powerful men in the country. Because of his union leadership, many working Americans considered Hoffa their hero, but Hoffa also had powerful enemies.